


Catching a Rat

by Blurhawaii



Series: Fargo [2]
Category: Fargo (2014)
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-03
Updated: 2014-06-03
Packaged: 2018-02-03 07:59:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1737191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blurhawaii/pseuds/Blurhawaii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I still don’t know what to call you,” she says.</p>
<p><i>Does it matter? I can’t hear it,</i> he writes.</p>
<p>He smiles, kind of goofy, and she smiles back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Catching a Rat

**Author's Note:**

> A bit of plot, more teaming up, and wildly unlikely scenarios.
> 
> This is pure fantasy at this point.

*

Breakfast has the air of a contract agreement.

They don’t hang around for long but there’s a kind of finality in the way he lets her pay for the scarcely touched food and numerous cups of coffee. Money has changed hands and when she climbs back into his car, their partnership, for however short a time, is signed, sealed and delivered.

He drives for another twenty minutes and then pulls over at a sorry looking motel on the edge of town.

There, he draws a numbered key from one of his pockets and lets it hang from his fingers in the space between them. The obnoxiously large tag attached to it matches the sign outside and, as she trudges behind him in the snow, she’s not surprised by her own passivity and is instead impressed by his preparation.

All she’s managed in her few days of recovery is to go over evidence that don’t make sense and mope.

She hovers at a distance, once inside, with her back to the door and he moves around the room, running his gloved hands over everything. When it appears he’s satisfied that no one’s been in the room since, he grabs the motel stationary, brings it over to the table and scribbles something down before moving away to drop to his knees by one of the beds.

While he works, Molly approaches the table and in hurried block lettering reads:

_SAFE HOUSE_

_FOR WHEN JOBS GO BAD_

_TRY NOT TO TOUCH ANYTHING_

She contemplates what ‘bad’ might have entailed before this job but the sound of something heavy hitting the ground brings her attention back to the deaf fella. He’s crouched over an open duffel bag. With a loud, trying exhale, he rummages around until finally he pulls out a manila folder and brandishes it in the air like a prize.

He pushes aside the pad decorated in his own messy handwriting and replaces it with the folder. Tacked to the first sheet is the clearest view Molly’s had of Malvo since all this started.

She scans the information on show and then has to drag a chair over, fingerprints be damned, to start again from the beginning.

It’s mostly insubstantial evidence, stuff that could never lead to a solid arrest but helpful nonetheless. There are more grainy photos and records of his supposed hits; there’s even a list of known aliases with Frank Peterson among others printed in text right before her eyes.

He joins her at the table and when she glances up he looks exhausted. The folder, and the ease in which he passed it over, is worth more than she can express but the weariness on his face keeps her from becoming too indebted.

“Won’t your bosses have a problem with this,” she asks, thinking of Bill and how he’d react knowing she was here. “You know, with you showing me this, working with me?”

He signs something, offhand and tired, before he realises his mistake and reaches for the pad again. _All dead_ , he writes, and there’s no emotional connection there, not like with his partner.

Molly nods and keeps nodding until everything reshuffles in her head. Eventually, she sits back with a sigh and considers the man in front of her.

“I still don’t know what to call you,” she says.

_Does it matter? I can’t hear it,_ he writes.

He smiles, kind of goofy, and she smiles back.

* 

In the front office Molly exchanges two dollars for eight quarters and steps back out into the cold.

The payphones are around the corner, out of sight of the room but that’s hardly relevant anymore. The fallout from this arrangement would reach them both at this point. She’s not about to call in the cavalry. What she’s doing is much worse. She feeds a few quarters into the machine before she can talk herself out of it.

It picks up on the third ring.

“Dad?”

There’s noise on the other end of the line and Molly can easily picture the breakfast rush at the diner: two regulars and a retired cop. The familiarity relaxes her immediately.

“I thought you were at work,” he says and Molly tries to rub the grit from her eyes before answering.

“I was. I am. I just… I wanted to check you hadn’t managed to kill my flowers yet.”

She’d left the bouquet Gus had bought her on the counter. She’s never at home enough to appreciate them there and they deserve to be on show.

Her dad just laughs good-naturedly. “Hey, I raised you, didn’t I? Give me some credit.” She grins into the phone but her silence is enough to tip him off and his voice turns serious. “Are you sure you’re okay, hun?”

Another car pulls into the motel and Molly watches as it turns around and leaves back the way it came. She doesn’t blame them really; there’s something eerily vacant about this place, isolating.

“I’m fine,” she lies, “work’s just been a little trying lately.”

He makes a sound of neutral understanding.

“Don’t get discouraged, alright. In all my years, I’ve noticed the world usually rights itself in the end.”

“You think?”

“I know.”

His overconfidence is comforting in the way only a parent can manage and when she hangs up a little later, she feels surer about her choice.

She uses the leftover money to buy two cans of something ice cold and refreshing.

*

The deaf fella doesn’t hear her when she returns to the room on account of him being deaf. And as she pauses in the doorway, drinks chilling her hands to the point that it hurts, she feels a lot like she’s intruding on a private moment.

He’s sitting hunched over on the bed with one hand kneading the lines on his forehead and the other gingerly holding the fresh bullet wound on his hip. The duffle bag is at his side, though the clothes peeking out are muted in colour and not anything she could see him wearing.

The dead partner is still a pervasive presence, she guesses, and grief obviously towers over him like a shadow when no one is looking.

She holds out the cold can of pop and his gaze travels slowly up her arm. He nods in thanks but instead of opening it he presses it flush against his neck and shivers, full body, at the relief. Molly knows what that’s like. Ever since she left the hospital she’s been running hot and cold. In many ways, they’re both still healing.

He points to the table where there’s a page of writing and a business card waiting for her. She picks up the card first.

It’s from a different motel, equally as low budget, although it does have a website printed in italics along with the name and a phone number. It’s blank on the other side. Next, she picks up the pad and reads:

_He came to the hospital. Gave me this card. Said to come find him after I had healed up. He must not like loose ends._

She reads it twice but it’s just as unbelievable the second time. When she looks up, he’s watching for her reaction.

“He’s a monster,” she scoffs.

He doesn’t react and Molly thinks of the carnivorous, cannibalistic world they live in and how the man making his way towards her now is actually an ally.

_Rats catching rats_ , he signs as he walks.

_He’s expecting me; he won’t expect us both_ , he writes instead.

“It could be a trap.”

His shoulders twitch in a macabre laugh. He’s expecting nothing less.

*

It’s an hour’s drive to Duluth, where Malvo supposedly is, from the middle of nowhere, which is where they currently are.

Molly waits in the car while he cleans out the room. He’s done this enough times that he doesn’t need her help and instead she spends the time curbing her desire to snoop around.

He throws various things into the trunk, illegal things probably, but the duffle bag goes to the back seat. He flashes his index finger through the window, indicating _one minute,_ and disappears into the front office. She wonders how easy that is now, without a translator, and then has to remind herself that he is a grown man; he can look after himself.

When he returns the pad is still in his hand.

_Not today,_ he writes, _I will come and get you when it’s time._

The uncertainty must show on her face because he signs again except, this time, it’s one she knows.

_Scouts honour._

It surprises a laugh out of her, one he returns with a soft hiss.

He then proceeds to drive all the way back to Bemidji, where he drops her off at the station with a polite wave, leaving her standing in the snow; right in the spot she had been standing what seems like a lifetime ago.

Her head is spinning but it’s the wait that’s going to do her in.

*

**Author's Note:**

> There will be one final piece to this, once I convince myself it's not as stupid as it sounds.


End file.
